Fluorocarbon stain resistant textile treatments such as Teflon® are used to impart repellent properties to textile surfaces. Such treatments typically provide limited protection against staining of the textile surface. Once oily stains are pressed into the fibrous structure of a repellent fluorocarbon-treated textile surface, such stains generally cannot reliably be removed from the textile surface.
Antimicrobial textile treatment offers added advantage of reducing or eliminating odor and mildew in textiles by limiting the growth of microbes within a textile. Numerous United States patents have directed efforts toward the application of antimicrobial treatments for textile or fabric substrates, including, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,968,207; 6,479,144; 6,024,823; 6,492,001 B1; 6,207,250; 5,565,265; and U.S. Published applications 2003/0008585 A1 entitled “Treated Textile Fabric” and 2001/0021616 A1 entitled “Treated Textile Fabric”. Many of the textile fabrics disclosed in these references, however, impart no substantive stain release properties, making them difficult to clean.
Stain release refers generally to the ability of a textile or fabric to release a ground in stain, such as an oil-based stain, from the fabric surface. It would be beneficial if a textile was capable of exhibiting stain repellency to liquid spills, but also function well in stain release. Many prior art treated textiles provide protection in terms of repellency, but fail to provide substantial protection as to stain release. A fabric that could provide repellency to liquids, substantive stain release, and also control the growth of microbes, mold, mildew, and the like, would be highly desirable for many textile surfaces.
A recent U.S. Patent application publication 2003/0008585 A1 to Rubin et. al. entitled “Treated Textile Fabric” (“Rubin”) discloses compositions and a process for preparing a treated textile fabric. In general, the fabric comprises from about 6 weight percent to about 12 weight percent of a fluorochemical textile treating agent, which forms a relatively heavy film on the fabric. However, a textile containing such a relatively large percentage of textile treating agent may be undesirably stiff or have a relatively low degree of hand. Further, such chemicals are costly when applied in such amounts. Using relatively large amounts of such treating agents upon a fabric surface may reduce softness, which is undesirable. Also, such fabrics have poor soil and stain release characteristics.